e-third inside. When a keen edge has been formed, which can easily be
tested by gently applying the finger, it should be stropped on a piece
of stout leather. It will be found, if the finger is passed down the
tool and over its edge, that the stoning has turned up a burr. This must
be removed by stropping on both sides alternately. A paste composed of
emery and crocus powders mixed with grease is used to smear the leather
before stropping; this can either be procured at the tool shop, or made
by the carver. When the tool has been sufficiently stropped, and all
burr removed, it is ready for use, but it is as well to try it on a
piece of wood first, and test it for burr, and if necessary strop it
again.

Before we leave this tool, however, we shall anticipate a little, and
look at it after it has been used for some time and become blunt. Its
cutting edge and the bevel above it are now polished to a high degree,
owing to friction with the wood. We lay it on the stone, taking care to
preserve the original angle (15 deg.). We find on looking at the tool after
a little rubbing that this time it presents a bright rim along the edge
in contrast with the gray steel which has been in contact with the
stone. This bright rim is part of the polished surface the whole bevel
had before we began this second sharpening, which proves that the actual
edge has not yet touched the stone. We are tempted to lift the right
hand ever so little, and so get rid of this bright rim (sometimes called
the "candle"); we shall thus get an edge quicker than if we have to rub
away all the steel behind it. We do this, and soon get our edge; the
bright rim has disappeared, but we have done an unwise thing, and have
not saved much time, because we have begun to make a rounded edge,
which, if carried a little farther, will make the tool useless until it
is reground. There is no help for it: time must be spent and trouble
taken in sharpening tools; with method and care there need be very
little grinding, unless tools are actually broken.

To resume our lesson in tool-sharpening: we can not do much carving with
one chisel, so we shall now take up gouge No. 2 as being the least
difficult. This being a rounded tool, we must turn the stone over and
use the side we have determined to keep for gouges, etc. We commence
rubbing it up and down the stone in the same manner as described for the
chisel, but, in addition, we have now another motion. To bring all the
part